Eight Sonnets for Compline by Gary Bills

 

Eight Sonnets for Compline

INVISIBLE BUT NEAR

 

 

Lord bless the earth - be close to us in sky,

Oh God the Father, wearing clouds for beards,

Both changing and eternal! -  drift on by,

Drift on, until great Charlemagne is done, 

With steeple tops and weather-vanes and cocks;

All battles won, and beggars sent away,

And Perkin justly pelted in the stocks -

All crowd a clockwork sphere, and cannot stay;

But bless our modern world - be close in sky,

Invisible but near - a bubble's film from here,

And grant me grace to seldom question why

No dancing proof can ever quite appear;

Though moon-eyed Galileo sought your throne,

And searched your stars in vain, and wept alone.

 

 

  

 

PLAINSONG AT EASTER 

 

 

We chant, because a dead man starts to breathe -

His tomb is filled with echoes, filled with awe,

And we - wide-eyed like saints on parchment leaves,

We'll sing this day beyond the doubting shore.

There's patience in our song, in silence too -

We kneel in licks of shadow and of light -

Whatever candles bring – the end is true -

His triumph at the edge of death and night;

Though cities burn, one city shall remain,

Though many crosses gather around the one

His universe will summon every name,

And all shall rise when time and dark are done;

Let’s sing until the risen God has heard -

To make new Earth and Heaven, with one word.

 

  

BEYOND THE LOCK AND KEY

 

Country graveyard - silence or the bee,

Where ragwort grows between the leaning stones,

Preserve these names - they had more faith than me,

A briefer time to pray. I bless their bones

And if I could, I'd show them Heaven's door,

Eternity beyond the lock and key;

Their haunted seasons made them hope for more -

They paused, bewildered, in their barley sea

And knew the fever's verdict on the young

And blighted harvests bringing hunger's bite

And sudden ague, taking off the strong,

And Adam hale at breakfast, dead by night;

But bring on Eden's maypole, then amen!

With cider too, was that enough for them?

 

 

CHRIST IN THE PAGAN GROVE

 

 

When Christ observed those peasants deep in prayer,

He frowned, at first, to see the gods they'd made -

Three wooden idols stood in open air,

Familiar, but silent in their glade -

Silvanus in his wolf-skin, led by fauns,

And piping Pan with ivy round his hips -

Still nimble on his hooves through sylvan dawns,

And Flora breathing spring from laughing lips

To make the winter chill release its grip,

When aconites might bloom in every dint

And bees delight in coltsfoot - sip by sip

And bring the vatted honey's golden glint.

Then Christ forgave those starvelings at their shrine: 

The doubts, the cries, both human and divine.

 

 

  

A BYZANTINE MONK CONSIDERS

             CANDLE MAGIC

 

 

A vain buffoon, I did not think it odd

to add my votive candle to the rest,

convinced my words – my words - might alter God;

though others prayed, my prayer alone was blessed -

as if, in some far cave where genies roam,

I'd turned a borrowed Gnosis into rhyme;

but if my verses echoed, around that dome,

as time put out the candles, line by line,

I could not claim a light re-lit was new.

They are enough, those candles in their shade,

to be the stars, and Heaven's lanterns too;

they burn to be unmade, and they are made -

they are enough, and more than rite and prayer;

no words from me can warm the winter air.

 

  

KING OF ZION 

 

When Jesus Christ was handed to the troops,

the devil took time out and shared their fun -

drawn by cries and shrill, sadistic whoops,

to see a Man-God broken in the sun.

He saw how whips can flay the back to meat,

how thorns must find the shrieking nerve and vein,

and Satan found no purpose on that street,

but he adored the pageant, all the same -

before fresh days for butchery with glee,

with time, perhaps, for Shabbat morning kills.

These men were experts, this was plain to see;

no need to praise their lust and eager skills -

The King of Zion? Christ! You're not so tough...

He watched them at their work. It was enough.

 

 

A SONNET FOR BYZANTIUM 

 

Please, tell me how to find Byzantium,

don't say the chiming days are dead and gone

for saints in slow procession, one by one,

and gold mosaics that flare with Easter sun.  

Through time and cogs, metallic feathers chirr -

and gongs that stirred the bones in Yeats's ear

are almost-heard, although they never were -

are even felt along the nerve, as fear

becomes a lion in the street, as time

collects the trinkets, and every grand conceit,

and every flute and every pouncing rhyme

which kept the lords and ladies on their feet.

Night Watchman on your tower! – still give the word -

To bolt the gates and save the singing bird.

 

 

DURHAM CATHEDRAL

 

At times, they did not comprehend the plan,

Those lines on parchment, concepts out of reason,

As if an angel whispered in their dreams.

They built their ship with stone, although they knew

That stone must sink, and that, of course, was faith;

Their masts were sandstone columns without sails,

Who needs a sail to cross one thousand years?

This ship won’t sink, although it’s made of stone,

And doubt’s a heavy cargo in the hold;

Above the gorge that rises like a wave

When all four winds are blowing time to Hell,

This ship is steady, set towards an end

Where doubt will be an offering at His feet,

And He will not condemn the frightened child.

Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is currently the fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake, and he has recently gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with a distinction.

He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, Bredbeddle's Well, which was published  in Lothlorien in 2022.

Gary's poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published, – “The Echo and the Breath” (Peterloo Poets, 2001); “The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart” (bluechrome, 2003); and “Laws for Honey” (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited “The Review of Contemporary Poetry”, for bluechrome.

His work has been translated in to German, Romanian and Italian. A US-based indie publisher, The Little French, published his first novel, “A Letter for Alice” in 2019, and a collection of stories, “Bizarre Fables”, in 2021. These were illustrated by his wife, Heather E. Geddes. His second novel, "Sleep not my Wanton", came out in January 2022.

"Sleep Not..." is due out again shortly as an audio book, as possibly as a hardback.